Things My Mother Taught Me

After five straight days of beautiful sunny weather we are hunkered down under rain, thunder and lightning, wind and ever-darkening skies. This is particularly annoying since we have access to a great swimming pool right outside our back door only until Sunday, at which time we will pack up and leave and return to our non-swimming pool house in Maine.

Naturally, one does not swim in a thunderstorm. According to my mother, who died in 1981 but whose influence lives on, one also does not shower, use the phone, wash dishes, walk near a window or take a drink of water in a thunderstorm; even excessive salivating could kill you. Nothing to do with water or electricity is allowed, so for instance I could get struck and die just by using my computer which I am doing this very moment, in the storm, as a form of rebellion against someone who has been gone for 30 years.

When my mother was 19, she witnessed three people near her get struck by lightning. She was waiting out a storm at the beach in Brooklyn's Coney Island, standing in a line of people at a water fountain. The fountain was hit, and the rest is death-by-proximity history. Naturally when she later married and had children, this shocking (ha) event haunted her, and anytime it rained my sister and I were dragged onto the bed in the middle of my parent's bedroom, far away from any windows, to avoid being electrocuted.

And that's why I am nuts today. That, and because this morning, during a brief respite from the storm, I bought a hot pink Noodle for the pool at the Rhinebeck Five and Dime, and it is right now languishing in the corner of the den. Hopefully it will get some time in the water before we head home.